Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

In this post I will allow myself to move outside the world of chewing gum and jump into the larger “food industry” field.

After the eye-opening experience I had during last ISM, and that I discussed in previous posts, about the production of 3D chewing gum, I’ve done a bit of research on internet on the 3D Food printing matter. I have found a few interesting things that I’d like to share with you.

For sure this field (making food with a 3D printer) is complete novelty in all aspects. However there are restaurants that are already using this technology. I found one not far from home:

MIRAMAR in the Costa Brava, about 100km north of Barcelona (and not far from where the world-famous Ferran Adria’s “El Bulli” was located) is one of them. Miramar’s Chef Paco Pérez, with 2 Michelin stars experiements and develops 3D dishes.

This is a link to an interesting article in the New York Times that discusses some of the issues and controversies which curound this fascinating new paradigma. Will this machines become part of a common kitchen? What new possibilites do they offer in terms of tastes, textures, ingredients and composition of the food…?

Finally, a link to the website of Foodini the printer used by Paco Pérez, where you can side excellent pictures of 3D food and discover more about the machine. I reccommend the FAQs section!

On the other hand, ProSweets exhibition, which runs parallel to the ISM and where we can find the suppliers to the industry (machinery, ingredients, packaging, …), has been significantly smaller this year. The reason is that most of the machinery suppliers where not there exhibiting because this year in May there will be the 2017 Edition of INTERPACK, in Düsseldorf. This has been the traditional big show for the machinery suppliers, so it seems that keeping both (ProSweets and Interpack) in the same year was not convenient for them.

The press (www.confectionerynews.com) has released news about the new technology that Mondelez is using for the production of their top brands (Trident, Dentyne, Clorets, etc…). The new cooling system has been supplied by the German company GABLER and it offers huge processing advantages.

Getting ready one more year to go to Cologne and visit ISM and Prosweets. i will inform you, as usual, about the novelties I find there. I invite you to visit older posts in this blog to find the different reports about different brands and products that I found in 2013 and 12014.

This association comprises the main chewing gum manufacturers worldwide and also some gum base suppliers. It was generated in 2005 by the merger of the European and the North American associations. The web site contains some information about chewing gum (History, Fun facts, FAQs,…) which may be of your interest.

Today I inform about a company in Spain that wants to stop its chewing gum production and has put its production line for sale.

This company is named DAMEL and located near Alicante, on the Mediterranean coast. I think it is a pity that this happens because they have a brand (“Cheiw”) which I associate with my childhood. Probably my first bubble gums were “Cheiw”. However it seems that nowadays they are focused on other type of confectionery (chewy candy, liquorice, hard candy, jellies,…) and good old “Cheiw” is not their target anymore. That’s why they offer a full cut & wrap production line (mixer, extruder, cooling tunnel, etc…) for sale.

In case you read this and are interested you can contact directly Mr Angel Cerdà at: a.cerda@mercadalia.es